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1.06
Chapter 1 • Follow-Up Section 1.06
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Overall Conclusion
The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, previously known as the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (Ministry), as of September 4, 2018, has implemented 21%
of the actions we recommended in our 2016 Annual Report, all of which relate to practices at
the Ministry’s regional offices. For example, the Ministry consulted with stakeholders to determine which areas of the streamlined assessment process require more guidance. The Ministry has also developed a risk analysis tool that regional staff can use to determine which streamlined assessments they should review. The Ministry also surveyed regional staff and incorporated their suggestions into updated internal procedures for reviewing
RECOMMENDATION STATUS OVERVIEW
# of Status of Actions Recommended
Actions Fully In Process of Little or No Will Not Be No Longer Recommended Implemented Being Implemented Progress Implemented Applicable
Recommendation 1 1 1
Recommendation 2 1 1
Recommendation 3 1 1
Recommendation 4 2 1 1
Recommendation 5 2 1 1
Recommendation 6 2 2
Recommendation 7 1 1
Recommendation 8 3 1 2
Recommendation 9 2 1 1
Recommendation 10 1 1
Recommendation 11 2 2
Recommendation 12 1 1
Total 19 4 3 12 0 0
% 100 21 16 63 0 0
Chapter 1 • Follow-Up Section 1.06 streamlined assessments and communicating with
project owners.
The Ministry is in the process of implementing 16% of the actions we recommended in our audit.
For example, it has begun analyzing and reviewing many of its guidance documents. In December 2017, it released guidance on incorporating climate change into environmental assessments, and it plans to release guidance on how to incorporate cumulative effects into comprehensive environ-mental assessments by March 2019. The Ministry has also improved its processes at its regional offices to better track the number of streamlined assessments. The Ministry is reviewing its compli-ance framework, including the appropriateness of penalties for project owners who do not submit the appropriate documentation, and is also reviewing the use of independent bodies in other jurisdictions, which will both be completed by December 2018.
Little or no progress has been made regarding 63% of the actions we recommended in our report.
For example, we found that the time to complete the Ministry’s reviews of bump-ups has increased from 213 days at the time of our 2016 audit to 273 days when we did our follow-up, and the Ministry is unable to determine when timelines will start to decrease. Also, the Ministry has not clarified the legislative criteria with which the Minister makes decisions on bump-up requests or whether to refer a project for a public hearing. The Ministry has not begun reviewing the Environmental Assessment Act to ensure that projects with the potential for significant negative impacts are assessed regardless of whether they are public- or private-sector pro-jects, or to clarify what kinds of government plans and programs must undergo an environmental assessment. The Ministry plans to continue to work with Class EA project owners regarding updating the criteria of their Class EA documents used to determine the thoroughness of assessment each project receives; however, the Ministry is unable to determine when such changes will be made. The Ministry also has not provided any guidance to streamlined assessment project owners regarding
conducting cumulative effects assessments, and has not published a database of all environmental assessments for the public to access. The Ministry indicated that it expects to complete various reviews by the end of 2018. However, the Ministry was not able to provide dates when the results of any of these reviews would actually be imple-mented. These will include:
•
reviewing the criteria that determine the thoroughness of assessment required for regulated Environmental Assessments (EAs), as well as the criteria for determining the categorization for Class EA projects;•
developing various internal mechanisms and processes, including service standards for reviewing bump-up requests;•
completing a review of its compliance frame-work; and•
conducting a feasibility study for perform-ance measures for the program.During the course or our follow-up work, the Ministry also indicated that it plans to perform an analysis of staffing needs at its regional offices in May 2019. The status of actions taken on each of our recommendations is described in this report.
Background
An environmental assessment is a planning and decision-making process that evaluates the poten-tial environmental impacts of a proposed project or plan. This process is required under the Environ-mental Assessment Act (Act), primarily for public-sector projects and plans.
The intent of the Act is to establish a process that identifies and resolves potential environmental problems before actual environmental damage occurs. The Ministry of the Environment, Conserva-tion and Parks (Ministry) is responsible for admin-istering the Act.
The scope of environmental impacts under the Act is broad: in addition to the impact on
Chapter 1 • Follow-Up Section 1.06
the natural environment, it includes human life, social, economic and cultural factors that influence a community.
The Act also allows for most environmental assessments to be streamlined—that is, subject to pre-set and less rigorous processes for projects considered to be routine and to have predictable and manageable environmental impacts. Three types of streamlined environmental assessment (EA) processes are outlined in regulations: transit, electricity projects and waste-management projects (these are known as regulated EAs). Eleven types of streamlined assessment processes (known as Class EAs) for groups or classes of projects such as municipal infrastructure projects, waterpower projects and public works projects, are outlined in documents prepared by government ministries, municipalities and not-for-profits representing groups that conduct certain projects on a regular basis. These Class EA documents are approved by the Ministry.
Overall, our 2016 audit found that Ontario’s environmental assessment process needed to be modernized and aligned with best practices in Canada and internationally. Because the Act is 40 years old—and is, in fact, the oldest environmental assessment legislation in Canada—it fell short of achieving its intended purpose. For example:
•
Ontario is the only Canadian jurisdiction in which environmental assessments are generally not required for private-sector projects. These projects—such as mining operations or chemical manufacturing facilities—proceed without an up-front evaluation of the environmental impacts of the project unless they either are required to undergo a federal environmental assessment or voluntarily agree to undergo a provincial environmental assessment.•
Environmental assessments were not com-pleted for many significant government plans and programs. Although the Act applies to government proposals, plans and programs, only streamlined assessments had beenconducted, and only for forest-management plans. No other environmental assessments had been completed for any provincial government plan or program in the last two decades. This is because:
•
The Act is not specific about the types of plans and programs that must be assessed.This means that determining whether a government plan—for example, the Prov-ince’s Long-Term Energy Plan—requires an environmental assessment is open to interpretation by the provincial ministries and agencies that propose the plan.
•
Other legislation undermines the role of environmental assessments by exempting certain plans and programs from requiring them. For example, the Climate Change Action Plan, transportation plans and the government’s renewable energy program are exempt from requiring an environ-mental assessment.Prior to passing the Act in 1976, the government emphasized the important role the public can play in identifying potential impacts, assessing their significance, and evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of a project or plan. However, the benefits of public input have not been realized. For example:
•
Decisions regarding whether to grant public requests for more extensive consultation are at the Minister’s discretion, with no clear criteria or an independent body to ensure objectivity. In the five-and-a-half years prior to our 2016 audit, the Minister denied all but one of the public requests to have 177 streamlined assessments bumped up to comprehensive assessments.•
The public was not informed about most projects. The majority of projects underwent the less rigorous streamlined environmental assessment process that included about 30 days of public consultation. The Ministry’s website had only information about projects undergoing comprehensive environmentalChapter 1 • Follow-Up Section 1.06 assessments. Neither the project owners,
referred to in the Act as proponents, nor the Ministry provided the public with informa-tion about streamlined assessments beyond this brief consultation period.
Neither the comprehensive nor the streamlined process was effectively or efficiently overseen by the Ministry. As a result, the public obtained minimal assurance that these processes were effective in preventing and/or mitigating the negative environ-mental impacts of projects.
Other significant observations included the following:
•
The type of assessment required for a par-ticular project was often not based on the project’s potential environmental impact. For example, the basis for determining whether a comprehensive or a streamlined assessment was required for a particular project often depended on its size, scale and cost rather than its potential impact.•
The Ministry had no assurance that stream-lined assessments were conducted properly because of its limited involvement. Many streamlined assessments were completed without the Ministry’s knowledge—including, for example, 80% of those conducted by the Ministry of Transportation in the five years prior to our audit.•
Lengthy Ministry reviews of public requests to bump up streamlined assessments to com-prehensive assessments caused unnecessary project delays. Multiple layers of reviews resulted in an average of seven months of delays, but did not substantively change the outcome of the review. Projects were delayed until all reviews were completed, which often resulted in financial and non-financial costs to project owners.•
Project owners were not required to consider the cumulative effects of other relevant activ-ities, such as known future projects and those that were already occurring in the project area. This could result in projects going aheadin areas that were already subject to signifi-cant environmental stresses.
We made 12 recommendations, consisting of 19 actions, to address our audit findings.
We received commitment from the Min-istry that it would take action to address our recommendations.
Status of Actions Taken on Recommendations
We conducted assurance work between March 29, 2018, and September 4, 2018. We obtained written representation from the Ministry of the Environ-ment, Conservation and Parks that effective Octo-ber 31, 2018, it has provided us with a complete update of the status of the recommendations we made in the original audit two years ago.